It's Spring!

[Zwolfe]

Well, it got around 50F here today so I tossed on a t-shirt and went outside to get wet n' wild.

I haven't got to do any detailing at all in around 8 months which is very depressing since I really get my jollies off on it.

Unfortunately these are like 5MP camera phone pics, I didn't get a chance to borrow the wife's Nikon D5100, maybe tomorrow.



--- Annoying condensation in front left blinker ...



---



Yes, there's mud (AKA "Red Clay" Mud). It's West Virginia, WTF do you expect?!

I didn't bother doing the wheels, any day now there's gonna be more rock salt crap on the road so whatever. It's February, it's nearly magic I got a chance to do any detailing at all in February.

Now I just need to put in another order for more Zaino products.

EDIT: I should make a note that Pakshak towels are simply brilliant and worth the money. You can remove so much residue with their yellow ultra fine polishing towels that it's nearly stupid. I only used one towel for removal of one layer of Z5 and one spritzing of Z6 --- I probably could have gone an entire second round.

[Cobb]

I cheated. I got an 11 dollar car wash with all the extras, then used some spray wax and a glove to get the door sills, trunk latch area and got all the windows really good.

Yours looks way nicer than mines. Think I got the tail end of 2 captain kangroo ping pong drops and a hurricane.

[Zwolfe]

Captain Kangaroo. That's funny.

I'm currently miserable with a "real camera(tm)" but this is what I took today.

What's weird is after night the car always looks better the next day even with dust lounging around on it ...



Don't be fooled, though. The front bumper looks like it has been through a war zone from road debris and the hood could use some work. It has 65k + miles on it now.

I spent most of today driving around town with people gawking, it's hilarious.

[Cobb]

When I drove through WV I was dodging loose coal from the dump trucks on the roads out there.

[Zwolfe]

I live along the Ohio river so I don't ever see coal trucks. My Insight is an I77 runner so it finds lots of stray pebbles flying around.

I hate winter when they put down that rock salt crap but if it doesn't rain or snow driving around is like driving through a machine gun field. The stuff gets flung everywhere and if someone up ahead veers off the road too far left or right it's all going airborne right into the nose of your car. It's borderline horrific.

[Cobb]

Yeah, twice now my insight had been in hail storms that reminds me of the segment of that television show where ping pong balls fall from the sky.

I use to live off i64 and it got some inclimate weather and was salted off and on. I was heading home one day and say what looked like an ambulance in the middle lane. As I got closer I heard ping like noises like my car was being shot at by a bb gun. I discovered stuff from coming off the ambulance vehicle in the center lane. I quickly passed him to see it was a dump truck spreading salt.

I remember going down i95 without my rear bumper cover when they resurfaced it. Wohoo, there was a grey cloud behind me of road grindings.

[jcbesq]

in NE TX its gravel and big bugs - the roads are rough and unfinsihed until u get on the interstate - it wreaks havoc on the front spoiler, hood, etc

[jcbesq]

this is decidedly the other extreme after coming from buffalo, ny where i did my grad work and dealing with lake effect snow and salt everywhere - my old cars used to suffer so much wear on exhaust systems, cats, radiators, and door sills